Tag: CGI

Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man is finally future-proof. The Amazing Spider-Man’s two film haul of $1.5 billion was stopped in its tracks with the wintry news of Sony Pictures’ deal with Marvel Studios. Having looked at those two films, now destined to be written out of history, Jokerside looks to the future of Sony’s top superhero franchise… In the bold new ‘world’ of Marvel Cinematic universe. Spider-Man’s not alone anymore.

FOR EVERYTHING THAT CAN CLAIM TO BE PURE MARVEL COMICS, SPIDER-MAN’S AT THE TOP. Until the Dark Knight and the Avengers leaped the billion barrier he was the dominant force in superhero flicks during the formative days of their 21st century cinematic takeover.

The background web

Bucking the rule of diminishing returns

Let’s jump the 1970s TV movies as affecting as they were. The 80s and 90s saw Spidey film rights jump around Hollywood studios like Cannon and Carolco while Tinseltown Alphas like James Cameron and Tobe Hooper circled. The end result was Sam Raimi effective Spider-Man in 2002, a film that served up an eye-watering $821million to prove that the comic movie was ready to seize the heart of the blockbuster season and that the web crawler was top of the pile. By the time Spider-Man 3 was released to lack-lustre reviews five years later, that trilogy had amassed nearly $2.5 billion. By contrast, Fox’s X-Men trilogy, which concluded a year earlier, grossed just over $1.1 billion. Almost inevitably it was Spider-Man’s weaker final entry that took the top spot in his franchise with nearly £900 million. But despite bucking the rule of diminishing returns, the critical stock of the property had fallen sharply as ‘creative pressures’ between director, producers and the studio were clear to see in the finished product.

After some prevarication over a fourth Raimi instalment, Sony’s decision to reboot the franchise five years later, complete with a fresh origin, raised plenty of eyebrows. Just how would the public take to yet another version of that well known Spider-Man origin?

The answer wasn’t too clean cut. 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man got a lot right. Praised but blockbuster-rookie Marc Webb swung into the director’s seat and produced a confident and stylish film, ably backed by the late James Horner on scoring duties and a fine cast; in particular Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in central roles that conjured up better chemistry than the Raimi films managed. In all, that was just about enough to power past those unsettling re-origin problems. But it seemed strangely unsure of how it should react to those Raimi films. It set a course closer to the comics but hastily established a great deal of baggage on the way. And the CGI-overload and bland villain’s plot brought to mind some unsettling comparisons with the dark and icy days of the mid 1990’s Batman films.

Moving on to The Amazing Spider-Man 2. After The Amazing Spider-Man took over $750 million in 2012, it seemed that Sony’s top superhero franchise was back on track, even if not raking in quite as much as it had a decade before. Still, it was closer to the comics, was well kitted out in front and behind the camera and there was a city full of enemies to be explored… So, the inevitable sequel was just the tip of the iceberg. Or so it seemed. It wasn’t a great start when the inimitable James Horner didn’t return to score a film he later described as “terrible”’… And it was all going so well, wasn’t it?

On with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – the swift end to Spidey’s last blockbuster life before he joins his friends in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

THE WRITING WAS ON THE WALL AFTER THE FIRST FILM. SPIDER-MAN ON FILM WAS NOW AS CONSUMED WITH TRAGEDY AS HE WAS ON PAPER. And a particular bell was tolling for Gwen Stacy. Jokerside previously took kindly to The Amazing Spider-Man (TAS), the first part of the Andrew Garfield starring Spidey franchise that came to an abrupt end this winter thanks to behind the scenes studio deals. Certainly, that film was too quick to re-spin the origin, and it was too bogged down by coincidence and a terribly bland villain with a very retro-plot. But… It was just about saved by excellent cast and crew. It was a beautifully and confidently shot film, but its release was unlucky, or silly, to coincide with the first Avengers film and the last of the Dark Knight trilogy. It featured a wonderful score by the late James Horner, while the chemistry between Garfield and the constantly impressing Emma Stone was a real highlight, elevating it beyond the gigantic Sam Raimi trilogy of ten years before as it left silly love triangle stuff to Superman films. Still, amid its quest for a convoluted background plot, it was clear TAS didn’t quite know whether to ignore or embrace its illustrious predecessor.

Amid all of that, TAS may have been lucky to fall just $70 million or so behind the nearest Raimi film. It was still considered, in whispered tones, a bit of a disappointment, but there was never a question of stalling the franchise. And when the sequel emerged two years later, the battleground of the superhero film had moved on still further. Now Spidey studio Sony couldn’t have anything other than the Marvel Cinematic Universe in its sights…

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Looking at the four colour page, it’s been mooted that only Spider-Man’s gallery of rogues can rival Batman’s. New York houses a huge and festering pile of madness for the web slinging one to crack jokes at. And while it’s not ostensibly as dark as in Gotham, it’s tinged with tragedy. And while Batman’s foes often take their lead from the world of fairy-tale and literature to deal melodrama, so Spider-Man’s often combine science with some kind of animal symbolism and human drama. You only have to take a look at the fan-baitingly cool scenes deep in the vaults of Oscorp Tower late on in this film to see that. The waiting tentacles of Doc Ock, the wings of the Vulture… They’re instantly recognisable.

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With a not inconsiderable haul of over $1 billion across two films, another of Spider-Man’s cinematic personas bit the dust earlier this year, without even getting in Kraven the Hunter’s sights … And it was all going so well, wasn’t it?

On the day Hollywood lost the great James Horner, composer of first film’s sublime score, it also gained a new Spider-Man in Tom Holland. So, just what happened to that famous spidey-sense? First, building up the Amazing Spider-Man.

NOT RENOWNED FOR HIS RETICENCE, SPIDER-MAN HAD LITTLE SAY IN THE MATTER AS INTANGIBLE CLOUDS FORMED ROUND HIM THAT HE COULDN’T PUNCH OR CATAPULT. Sony’s well publicised struggles combined with box office below the Sam Raimi Spidey films of last decade cast the web slinger in a colder light than ever before. Along with Fox’s X-Men and Fantastic Four, he was isolated against the growing dominance of the Disney run Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the year The Amazing Spider-Man (TAS) debuted the brand new Spider-Man, The Avengers ended Marvels’ Phase One and elevated the series to billion dollar blockbusters. It was a whole different universe to the one Raimi’s Spider-Man emerged to 10 years before. So, it was all the bolder that Sony attempted such a rapid re-origin.

Origin Issues

Cause for disappointment in what could be otherwise considered a major success.

There wasn’t really a precedent for a reboot of that speed, not with those figures involved, so the industry couldn’t help but squint a little. Batman Begins came closest in 2005, bringing a legitimate reboot to the Bat for the first time in 16 years. But then, Batman had two huge advantages: it came three years before Marvel’s plans kicked into gear and; the Dark Knight’s origins had never been fully explored on screen. Still, as subdued as that first film’s $374 million was, its two sequels more than evenly matched the Marvel machine. In comparison, TAS took $750 million, a clear $70 million less than the first of Raimi’s trilogy a decade before. That was cause for disappointment in what could be otherwise considered a major success. In part, it was unlucky too surface at the same time as The Dark Knight trilogy concluded with just over a billion dollars – and become the second best film about New York that summer.

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On the day the Cybermen might just get the upgrade they deserve, acelebration of recovered Martians and look at the difficulties of reintroducing monsters.

IT’S BEEN A FEW WEEKS SINCE THE ICE WARRIORS ENDED THEIR LONG ABSENCE AND RETURNED TO THE DOCTOR WHO UNIVERSE IN ITS 50TH YEAR. I was stoked to see their return as a long-term fan, although oddly, never having seen them on screen.

Scales of history

The Ice Warriors hit a little bit above their weight in the Whoniverse, perhaps it’s their clamp like exo-gloves that just chip the chin. Reptilian, cold blooded, hailing from Mars; theirs is a militaristic society based on honour and hierarchy – even though it’s long since been scattered throughout the stars by their home planet’s death.

My fascination with the Ice Warriors unfolded through classic Doctor Who TARGET novelisations, where their sibilance was even more pronounced and their appearance un-dulled by some hard-to-walk-in costumes. So, having finally no choice but to see them on screen in Cold War I embarked on not so much a retrospective as an introduction. The complete Ice Warrior TV stories, after what felt like an Ice Age.

Thussss did I ready the sonic device (speakers attached to a TV) and dived a good few furlongs in. First was the Ice Warrior’s second appearance in the Seeds of Death, the siege and invasion story that pitted them for the second time against the Second Doctor. Then there was the Peladon saga, The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon, political and satirical tales of intrigue with the Third Doctor. Their ‘triumphant ‘return in Cold War was a given and then – in anticipation of the freshly part-animated DVD release of their first story The Ice Warriors this Summer – I just re-thumb through of the TARGET novelisation of their tale for good meassssure.

I’ll stop hissing now.

I was hooked on the green scaly ones since I first read The Monster of Peladon – that may even have been my first Doctor Who book – well, perhaps just beaten by The Carnival of Monsters. It informed in me, although I didn’t appreciate it then, a fondness for the Third Doctor (aided by strategic broadcasts of The Daemons and Planet of the Daleks in the early 1990s of course) – but also a fascination with the ice Warriors that was only confirmed later by reading The Ice Warriors, and pawing over Adrian Rigelsford and Andrew Skilleter’s 1990 tome, Doctor Who: The Monsters. I was clawed in.

The Martians’ rather inexplicable hiatus helped stem any need to see them on ‘video’ so it took me until now to see them in cold blood. While they’d popped up in the Doctor’s printed adventures, they hadn’t appeared on television in any meaningful way since 1974. 27th April 1974 in fact – 39 years last month.

I was in no rush: they were held vivid, green and suspended in my imagination. But why such a fascination with the armoured aggressors?

Red-coloured spectacles

I was of course, a combination of things. It was the fact that they were reptiles, it was the hissing sibilance that worked well on the page. And then there was always the Target novelisation front covers – so definitive, fixed, static and importantly, drawn. The Ice Warrior stuck there on cover of their eponymous first tale, with its rather inhuman shape and that Lego hand sticking out of the page. I had been a massive Lego fiend since before I knew what opposable thumbs were, so that surely didn’t hurt. Of course there’s also the rather jaw dropping front cover to Gary Russell’s Peladon sequel New Adventure, Legacy (1994) – perhaps one of the best. There was also the idea of the exo-skeleton armour – their ear devices were the first thing the Doctor noticed about them – as well as the Ice giant mythological element and some heavy cultural reference points I’ll come on to later.

Importantly, there was also the fascinating class factor, though that surely crept in subconsciously. It’s ridiculous to consider any planet doesn’t have the diversity of Earth – although conceding that a multicultural alien race is almost impossible to convey on screen. It’s an interesting part of Who that while the Doctor often finds himself in hierarchical struggles with authority that hinder him as much as his foes, many of the his most notorious nemeses have deliberately and zealously removed diversity from their species through genetics, augmentation or cloning. The Ice Warriors however, have contended with mass environmental change while hanging on to their civilisation fairly intact. While they pose yet another not entirely organic foe for the Doctor, hierarchy is constantly an effective way to show their civilisation and of course, create dramatic threat.

But the Ice Warriors seemed far more subtle than simply having a Cyber-leader or a Supreme Dalek. There were ranks among the Ice Warriors, with differing armour denoting status and then soon enough there were the less armoured Ice Lords. Ice Warriors were generally awfully obedient and polite to their Lords. I found them quite the fascinating creation before I was sucked in by the horrific origins of the Cybermen.

The Big Thaw

There are two crucial parts of Ice Warriors being great. Unique among the main Who monsters, they were singularly written by one writer: Bryan Hayles. He took them on their own journey through four adventures. As part of this journey, the Martians are also distinct in the Who pantheon – until Moffat’s rather odd handling of the Sontarans – as being portrayed as both aggressors and allies of the Doctor – a concession to time, tolerance and in-discriminatory aliens that predated Star Trek:The Next Generation by a good 15 years.

About that punching above their weight: In the scheme of things, the Ice Warriors are generally considered one of the Big Four of Who Foes – a little kindly considering they’ve only appeared a handful of times. While they recurred twice with two Doctors, the Ice Warriors comeback in the new series took longer than expected and brought its fair share of challenges. They are not alone in that, many of these were the same challenges that the new Who crew faced when bringing other monsters back to the successful revival.

Carnival of Reunions

For the return of the Daleks, New Who wisely turned to the marvellous resource of Big Finish Audios. Show-runner Russell T Davies even drafted in Robert Shearman, well regarded writer of audio adventure Jubilee, which he reworked for the show. It was a wise step to introduce just one Dalek – focussing as much on the Doctor in the wake of the Time War as the pepper pot’s array of powers. The reintroduction of the Daleks was effective, especially in the context of their appearance at the Series’ end.

The Cybermen was a different kind of reboot. Considering we had never seen the actual origin of the Cybermen on their home planet of Mondas, it was an extra step to watch the birth of the Cyber race on a modern, if parallel, Earth. This gave us unfettered Earth Cybermen as opposed to the Mondas Cybermen of the original Who universe who were indicated to still be pottering around. Unfortunately, this had a rather unfortunate result. It’s presumably The Next Doctor when we see the real universe’s Mondas Cybermen – but these had somehow evolved from the Revenge Cybers seen in Dalek to match their parallel universe cousins. For a race that generally evolved in each appearance, their static development has stuck out like handlebar ears. Tonight may change that with a redesign and writer Neil Gaiman tasked with making the steel army scary again. As anyone who’s read Gaiman’s prologue to the reissued TARGET novelisation Doctor Who and the Cybermen will know, this bodes well.

In Series four, the Sontarans resurfaced in a rather random two-parter that stole healthily from the classic Ice Warrior adventure The Seeds of Death. It set up the war mongers nicely though, putting their ethos and fighting at the frontline and making up for some of the shortfalls that technology and budget had let slip in the classic series; while it didn’t exactly establish height parity, it set a look appropriate for a clone race. As show runner, Steven Moffat would later diversify the Sontarran culture somewhat – but perhaps that monster’s reduction to comic relief can wait for another time.

So, it’s tricky and needs thought this reintroducing malarkey – perhaps a little more than when these monsters were created. While the Cybermen emerged with an origin story in 1966, it took the Daleks over a decade. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that our planet’s own Silurian’s rose above the Ice Warriors in the pecking order of returnees. And the re-establishing of Homo Reptilia posed its own challenges which would have a marked effect on the Ice Warriors.

Both species are of course solar system originating reptilians and in some kind of Who mirror, they are neighbouring planet cousins similar to Humans and the Mondasians who would go on to become the Cybermen. The Martian timeline is a little unclear though. While they are not shown as existing in the present day until Cold War, they have been shown to be active in Earth’s vicinity thousands of years ago and in the far future. They’ve then spread out in the cosmos and generally discovered a new way of life in the even further future. The Silurians by comparison were building space arcs and badly positioned cryogenic cities millions of years ago. With a generally lengthy evolutionary cycle it’s possible that the two know each other, and if so, I doubt they’re on the best of terms. The prospect of their (inevitable) run-in is perhaps more tantalising than Daleks versus Cybermen.

Clearly the two species had different approaches to dealing with environmental changes: building snug armour versus millions of years of cryogenic suspension (hang on, they really are the reptile equivalent of Mondasians versus Humans in the Who universe!)

Back to Ice Picks

The Ice Warriors originally emerged into Doctor Who in a totally obvious reptilian way – or so it seemed. They were cold blooded creatures literally frozen in time – and long sleeps are ideas constantly reinforced by science-fiction and culture. Perhaps this meets every gene carrier’s fascination with immortality in a similar vein(sic) to vampirism – see the Amber encased mosquitoes that provided a time machine for dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. In addition, the frozen, slumbering giants of Mars had many cultural connotations. There are the Ice Giants of Norse legend, the warmongering son of the Roman God Mars – and also bring the snow-bound parenthesis of Frankenstein creeping into play.

Rigelsford and Skilleter’s The Monsters added enormously to the myth of the Ice Warriors, enhancing the Ice Warrior tales with various flourishes. The front section, before eye-witness accounts of the Ice Warrior tales are reproduced, is set out neatly by a letter detailing explorer Frederick William Wells and his teams’ encounter with an Ice Warrior in 1896 inspired his cousin HG’s writing on Mars…

The Ice Warriors were instantly both monster and Alien, with a genealogy and history that made them ready made to be released from an icy tomb. The fact they are Martian is almost arbitrary; that the name ‘Ice Warrior’ has stuck from one glib scientist’s observation is an idiosyncrasy, but a powerful one. There’s an inherent and inescapable danger from the moment an Ice Warrior is discovered. While California Man may be an exception, millennia of Genies in bottles and Pandora’s box has shown that many things that are locked up should never be released. But where would science-fiction be without human arrogance? Where would Doctor Who be? The Silurians were similarly entombed, albeit in a tomb of their own making.

Perhaps it’s the similarities that led to the fairly similar approach the Who Team took to the two species reintroductions in The Hungry Earth and Cold War respectively. Personally, the Silurian’s re-entry into the cannon posed the most problems as it‘s the first time the new series has produced a remake of a classic series adventure.

Of course, originality can be a very subjective thing, especially in science fiction and especially in Doctor Who. With some monsters there may be a fresh story, but constant re-use of familiar elements, for instance in most Dalek episodes. Then there’s occasional bonkers stark raving brilliant originality that knocks the wings off Weeping Angels . Sadly there’s also the recycling of new found originality, often in quick succession – particularly under the current creative team. The lowest point occurred in the latter half of a re-ordered Series 6 when the mid-run of stories was disappointingly repetitive.

In Series 5 however, the return of the Silurian’s was a straight up remake, retreading the same themes as the original show Doctor Who and the Silurians. All that was missing was the Brigadier blowing the whole bally lot up. Technically, there’s still many Silurian cities in slumber underground (and arcs in space) – and whole series of Doctor Who could be spent with the Time Lord visiting these thousands of sleeping cities under the crust. The tale was fairly perfunctory other than the plot points it rehashed, and rather flat in the less than mind-blowing production values of series 5. I wasn’t a fan of the complete remodelling of the Silurians. While cousins of the originals they may be, this was a step too far – and the removed telekinetic third eye would have livened things up no end.

That was one thing that was addressed a little more successfully with the returning Ice Warriors, although their return was still mixed. The method of the Warrior’s appearance is more a homage to the original story than a remake, but necessarily uses a lot of the same ideas again as the Warrior is released from its ice sleep near a tremendous power source. This time however, we stepped back from Aliens to Alien as we observe just one Warrior in the confines of a submarine – similar to the original Dalek in the bunker. Again, as does the Dalek, Skaldak drops his armour, but this time with more catastrophic results.

The armour redesign was brilliant and well promoted in pre-publicity. Swift and deadly compared to their lumbering cousins (De Niro from Karloff), it looked the part while respecting the past, unlike the Silurians. Skaldak was a Warrior as opposed to a Lord, though his reputation may have suggested otherwise, and some neat redesign incorporated Lords into the stylings of the armour, particularly above the chin from certain angles. In this reboot, the Lords may not even exist of course – I’ve a feeling that we may find out soon. It was the moving jaw of the Ice Warriors that had always been their most effective part. Particularly in the black and white Troughton tales, they were tremendously effective. But then Cold War’s attempts to expand the race came a bit unstuck.

As discussed in my review of the Pond’s swansong here, it’s only right that species and monsters should be explored in Doctor Who. Perhaps with the Ice Warriors, this is more true than most. They share common elements with the militaristic Sontarans and cybernetically enhanced Mondasians after all. Interestingly, the Ice Warriors last appearance came in the same season that the potato heads first appeared. While the Warriors had generally mellowed by that point, this time around it is the Sontarans who have been forcibly toned down while the Martians are introduced. When Hayles originally hit upon the idea of the Martians wearing cybernetic armour, it was the design need to make the different from the Cybermen that resulted in the distinctive Reptilians we have today.

Therefore a simple and quick way to advance the species on their reappearance was to lose their armour. All the surprise the Doctor registered couldn’t make up for the fact that this was implausible. The Ice Warriors deserved a bit more than rubber hands during the Alien segments of the show. But most crucially of all, they should have left the jaw alone. Again, that jaw was the one hard and fast brilliant part of the original design. So, when you see their face for the first time it’s completely different and, shudder, CGI… Something’s lost. A shame, a missed opportunity and frankly unnecessary.

That said, I’m not sure this is the last time we will see the Ice Warriors this year. They are Who’s version of the Klingons, a martial but honour bound race. While a force of absolute destruction, the ending rightly suggested that the Martians aren’t one-dimensionally evil – completely in line with their Who history. When they pop up again, they may well not be villains, but in the efforts of diversity among the monsters, it might just be time for that scrap with the Silurians.

To another glorious return of the Martians. Before the next Ice Age anyway.